Typical corporations are comprised of many physically disjoint branches. Corporate networks seek to provide a seamless coupling between the branches so that a corporate user has access to the same data regardless of where the user connects in the physical network. Because the data travels between two physically disjoint sites, measures must be taken to ensure that the privacy of the data is maintained. Several solutions exist for establishing private connection between remote sites. The first solution is to provide dedicated connections between sites. However, dedicated connections require complex provisioning at each site, and thus may be very expensive. A second solution is to use a Virtual Private Network (VPN). In a VPN, network providers' resources (a ‘backbone’) are shared by many different customers. Each customer layers security mechanisms on top of the backbone to carve out their own portion of the network, thereby providing the appearance of a private network. Each member of the VPN stores forwarding and authentication information that enables communication with members of the VPN. The tables storing the forwarding information can get quite large as the network grows and point to point connection associated with each network device is recorded, and thus network scalability is an issue in VPN network design.
An additional problem with VPNs is that the data passed between sites is typically not encrypted. Thus, the opportunity is present for eavesdropping or data modification by other devices in the public network. To overcome the security concerns, IPsec (Internet Protocol Security Protocol) tunnels are generally used to maintain privacy in a VPN. IPsec provides per-packet authenticity/confidentiality guarantees between communicating sites. In general, a tunnel is created by allocating a key to each of a pair of communicating sites. Data transferred between the sites is encrypted and decrypted using the key. Because only the pair of sites has knowledge of the key, only those two devices can gain access to the data. To maintain a network that implements VPNs and IPsec tunneling, generally a table is maintained at each site, identifying the other sites participating in the VPN, and the keys that may be used to authenticate communication with these devices.
Thus, both VPNs and IPsec tunneling involve point to point connections between sites, and therefore require that data enabling the point to point connections be maintained at each site. As a result, for each of N connections in the network the amount of data stored to support such a network grows at a rate of N2−1. In a network having a thousand endpoints, data may be stored identifying paths and authentication for the million connections between the endpoints, and the scalability of such a design rapidly becomes an issue.
To overcome the scalability issues associated with VPNs, Network based IP VPNs that allow the client sites to form routing peers with the service providers network prevent the client sites from suffering the effects of point to point connections. There are several variants of Network based IP based VPNs introduced in the standards bodies which share common attributes that address the scalability of point to point connections. One such architecture has been provided that uses layer 3 technology to abstract the particulars of the routing from the physical network topology. This architecture is described in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Request For Comments (RFC) 2547, as “Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)/Multi-protocol Label Switch Protocol (MPLS) VPNs”, by Rosen et al, March 1999. RFC 2547 describes a method where service providers may offer virtual private network (VPN) services using Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) for packet forwarding and Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) for route distribution. BGP/MPLS VPNs, because they operate at layer 3 of the network, will be referred to hereinafter as IP VPNs.
In the IP VPN architecture, a set of “sites” is attached to a common network which is referred to as a “backbone”. A site is a set of IP systems or devices which are capable of communicating with each other without the use of the backbone. For example, a site may include a set of systems which are in geographic proximity. In some protocols, such as the Border Gateway Protocol, a site would also be referred to as an autonomous system (AS). One or more Customer Edge (CE) devices are included at each site to enable the site to communicate with the backbone. The Customer Edge device may also be referred to as a gateway device, as it provides the communication path between the attached site (or autonomous system) and the service provider site.
A backbone is a network owned and operated by one or more Service Providers (SPs). The owners of the sites are customers of the SPs. The SP's backbone includes one or more Provider Edge (PE) routers, in addition to other routers that may not attach to CE devices. According to the IP VPN architecture, two sites have IP connectivity over the backbone only if there is some VPN which includes them both. Each PE router maintains a separate forwarding table for each VPN. When a packet is received from a particular site, the forwarding table associated with the VPN that the site belongs to is consulted to determine how to route the packet. It is important to note that the PE router does not include forwarding information for any VPN that has no site connected through the PE.
Referring now to FIG. 1, an exemplary IP VPN network is illustrated. At each site, there is one or more Customer Edge (CE) device, each of which is attached via some sort of data link 13 (PPP, ATM, Ethernet, Frame Relay, etc.), to one or more Provider Edge (PE) routers. The IP VPN network 10 illustrated in FIG. 1, includes CE device 12 at site 1, CE device 14 at site 2, CE device 16 at site 3 and CE device 18 at site 4. The backbone 19 includes PE devices 15 and 17, which may be operated by one or more different service providers.
Each PE maintains a number of separate forwarding tables, such as Virtual Routing and Forwarding (VRF) table 22 and 23 in PE 15. Every site to which the PE is attached is mapped to one of the forwarding tables. When a packet is received from a particular site, the forwarding table associated with that site is consulted in order to determine how to route the packet. For example, forwarding table 22 associated with site 1 is populated only with routes that lead to other sites that have at least one VPN in common with site 1.
The advantage of the IP VPN structure of FIG. 1 is its scalability from the client device. Because routing adjacencies are maintained at the between the PEs and from the PEs to the CEs rather than just between the CEs (as with layer 3 VPNs) the impact of any change in the network topology can be easily addressed by updating the VRF of the impacted PEs, thereby drastically reducing the amount of routing traffic in the network associated with maintaining route databases at each site. The problem with the IP VPN structure is that it does nothing to remedy the scalability issues associated with providing-security in the VPN. For example, it does not provide any data protection, i.e., confidentiality, message integrity, host authentication, replay protection etc. Rather, the IP VPNs rely on the fact that the PEs store forwarding information on a VPN specific basis, thereby ensuring that site information does not get forwarded to an incorrect destination.
The problem with such a scenario is that it requires that a high level of trust be placed on the Service Provider to protect the Customer data. Customers may be uncomfortable with the idea that their data may reside, unprotected, on the same data switch as that of a competitor, even if it is theoretically unavailable to the competitor. However, overlaying the traditional encrypted tunneling methods on top of the IP VPN structure simply introduces more point to point security associations, thereby eliminating the scalability benefits of the IP VPN architecture. Accordingly, it would be desirable to identify a method of further securing data in an IP VPN environment while maintaining the scalability attribute of the network.